What books should I buy???

[LordSolovar]

Well after a long hiatus, I'm returning to these boards with some questions.

 

The first and major one is what book to buy. It may be redundant since I'm on the board, but I'm looking for Fantasy books.

 

I have 5edRevised and Fantasy Hero. Now I'm interested in some purchases from the sale on the online store. I want one setting book, and two or three others like the Asian Bestiaries or the Grimories to help me delve deeper in the Hero Gaming Universe. I love magic but I think I want to steer away from Epic High Fantasy.

 

For setting books its really down to Tuala Morn or Valdorian.I don't know much about the Atlantean book so if anyone has anything to say about it I'll be open.Thanks for any help whatsoever in advance.

 

Shane

[Lord Liaden]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

Welcome back, my fellow Lordship! Nice to see you around our little corner of the Internet.

 

If you're not into Epic High Fantasy this go 'round you should steer clear of The Atlantean Age. It's a well-done and interesting setting, but just about as "high" as the genre goes without turning into outright supers -- world-spanning empires, demigods, and Earth-shaking magic.

 

Both Valdorian Age and Tuala Morn are largely self-contained, including creatures and magic systems specific to the setting, so books like the Fantasy HERO Grimoire(s) and Monsters, Minions, And Marauders, good as they are, are less applicable to those settings than to The Turakian Age, which is more "D&D-esque." I greatly admire the Asian Bestiary(s), and flavor- and power-level-wise they contain things that would fit in almost anywhere.

 

VA focuses a lot of its attention and detail on one major city, Elweir, and much less on the rest of the world. TM paints a less detailed but much broader canvas for adventuring.

 

Does any of that help?

[LordSolovar]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

Thanks for your response. It most assuredly helps.

 

In all honesty I love High Fantasy. Ive read numerous novels. Ive role played it in an AD&D/Palladium Fantasy Hybrid and in a free form rpg format. I just don't like how it plays in the gaming realm.

 

I like fantasy and I think S&S is the most appealing to me now because it seems human with evil and a degrading society. From my research so far Valdorian Age seems to be my favorite. I like that flavor better than the Celtic flavor of TM. I also like the detail put into Elweir while still leaving lots of the world to develop in the hands of the GM. I also like the magic system. Always thought magic should be difficult, hard, and complicated.

 

I really was looking at VA and TM because I wanted to avoid high fantasy and the necessity of Grimories. The self contained magic system is something I desire. If I was to buy books right now it would be VA, and the Two Asian Bestiaries for some unique twists in the gaming. Sound good? I'm still curious about magic in TM and other sources to augment my setting book, maybe martial arts or dragons or the likes.

 

Shane

[Kraven Kor]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

I have Fantasy Hero, the Grimoire, and MMM and find that while little in them is directly translatable to my "style" of Fantasy, there is plenty in them that has helped me flesh out my own thoughts and make decisions on power level and how I want to build things.

 

I think your best bet would be to see if you can find a local player or gaming shop that has some of these books to peruse and see if they have information you would find useful or not.

 

Have you thought about what type of campaign you wish to run? The more details you have on what you want out of the HERO system, the easier it is to determine which products would be most useful.

[LordSolovar]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

Hm...Well there is a local shop. Its just a long drive from my place. Additionally they usually don't have a wide selection of Hero there. Last time I went they had a disappointing selection. Theres another, yet its even further.I'm almost certain they'd have everything.

 

I came to Hero for its freedom, I'm finding myself overwhelmed, needing something to get me started, hence the one setting book and two supplements I'm planning on buying.

 

I thought of another question. Could anyone tell me the major differences between the two Asian Bestiaries?

 

Shane

[gojira]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

Tuala Morn is rather different. It's not much like DnD at all, so if you are looking for something familiar to players, TM may not be it. What Tuala Morn is is a really nicely done low powered Celtic world. It's a little hard to describe, but as a whole it works a lot more like a story or a novel, whereas DnD is rapidly becoming it's own subgenre.

 

If you're not familiar with Celtic fantasy, I'd recommend read a few of the early books of Deverry by Katherine Kerr.

 

Tuala Morn comes with it's own complete spell list, and it's own bestiary. You probably should consider getting the Hero System Grimore and also the Hero System Bestiary (the basic one, not the Asian one) to augment Tuala Morn, but they're not strictly necessary. Tuala Morn also gives a great demonstration how to alter the magic rules to fit a campaign style. The rules used in that book work really well and are very different from the standard Hero rules.

 

I don't own The Valdorian Age so I can't really comment. I also don't own the Asian Bestiaries so I don't know how well they'd fit into a typical fantasy style campaign.

 

Besides TM or VA, you might want to look at Urban Fantasy. It's got four different spell systems, four different mini-campaign worlds, and is generally a fun book. It is *modern day* fantasy so be aware of that if you do decide to order it. If you want a taste of UH, you can check the web for episodes of The Dresden Files, or look for books of the same name by Jim Butcher. There's a lot more to urban fantasy than that, and UH has a large bibliography of good fantasy, but Dresden Files is popular and easier to find.

 

As LL said, The Atlantean Age is very high powered fantasy. Demi-gods and heroes sort of stuff. It's decently done and fun, but not what you are likely looking for.

[Curufea]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

I recommend having a look at Gordon Feiner's reviews as well

[LordSolovar]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

Thanks Curufea, the reviews are great. I'm looking through them right now, seeing what grabs my eye.Oh and gojira, I never really considered the urban side, I'll look into that too.

 

I talked to one of the guys who will be playing, told him about all of the settings(other than urban since I didn't think of it)and he chose VA too. So it looks like its the winner. Ill look over urban but I think the people in my group would prefer pre-modern.

 

Now I'm interested to see what can best complement my expected purchase of the Valdorian Age.

 

Shane

[Lord Liaden]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

I thought of another question. Could anyone tell me the major differences between the two Asian Bestiaries?

 

Shane

 

When you get right down to it, the only significant difference between them is in the countries whose folklore they cover, and any specific conventions of that folklore. Both Bestiaries are well designed and illustrated, and cover an extraordinary array of mythic animals, intelligent races, spirits, singular creatures, and so on, many of which most Westerners have never heard of before, ranging in power from minor nuisance up to challenging whole teams of epic-class heroes. All of the material is very thoroughly researched, and many of the creature character sheets include customizing options. Because the creatures are so unusual, and so readily modified, you can change their names and perhaps some details of their appearance and SFX, and use them in very different settings, e.g. as sci-fi aliens.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

Since it sounds like you're going Valdorian, you might benefit from these additional resources.

 

Here's a good licensed introductory adventure for the Valdorian Age setting in the Hero Games online store, in PDF and reasonably priced: https://www.herogames.com/viewItem.htm?itemID=207273

 

This thread contains notes provided by our board colleague Captain Obvious to convert published adventures for other games (many of them freely available on the Internet) to use in the Valdorian Age: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68185

[LordSolovar]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

Well thank you all...I'm now in process of looking at my three books of choice online for the best deals. Ive decided to buy three books in this order:

(1)Valdorian Age

(2)Asian Bestiary Volume I/II Bundled

 

Surprisingly to me at least, the Hero Store seems to be the best place to acquire the Bestiaries. 30 dollars for both seems like a steal to me.

 

If anyone has more tips on how to delve into this wonderful world of Fantasy Hero, please share.

 

Shane

[Greywind]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

Buy all of them. Feed Osiris...

[Lord Liaden]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

If anyone has more tips on how to delve into this wonderful world of Fantasy Hero, please share.

 

Shane

 

Buy more Hero books, of course.

 

In lieu of that, perhaps you'd be interested in a broader selection of adventures for Fantasy HERO for free or very cheap: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1768195#post1768195

 

BTW if you don't yet own the HERO System Bestiary, I heartily recommend picking it up. It has many real-world animals and fictional creatures usable for multiple genres, guidelines and optional rules for using animals in games, and a host of templates for customizing the animal write-ups in the book or creating original ones. I've found it to be one of the most broadly useful tomes in my 5E collection.

[mayapuppies]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

This is a bit of a self promotion, but it seems like your preference for difficult magic fits right within the realm of Kamarathin. We even have an adventure being released this June.

[CTaylor]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

I might also suggest my Fantasy Codex, with the hundreds of spells and suggestions on how to build magic with the Hero toolkit.

[mayapuppies]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

I might also suggest my Fantasy Codex' date='[/url'] with the hundreds of spells and suggestions on how to build magic with the Hero toolkit.

Definitely a good resource as well.

[LordSolovar]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

Thank you for the fantasy codex and Kamarathin recommendations. They have both been bookmarked. I'm actually quite interested in both. Ill spend some time looking them over.

 

Oh and thanks Lord Liaden for those links. They've been added as well.

 

I have had a sudden change of heart. I am now unsure on what books I'm going to buy. I really don't want things I'll just read(I often read RPG rulebooks for fun), I want to be sure I'll use them in my Fantasy Hero Gaming.

 

The past two days I've been fooling around with some ideas for a setting and a magic system. My new question is, what do you think is most difficult to create as a GM, skills and talents, a setting, a magic system, or enemies such as NPCs and beasts? I personally think magic, skills, and talents wont be hard. For me the enemies I think will be the worse. So I'm still leaning towards the Asian Bestiaries. Still may go for a setting, because that is kind of a mix of all of the above. Please help. Thank you all.

 

Shane

[Lord Liaden]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

Well, Lord S, since you're still interested in the Asian Bestiary duo, perhaps you'd also like to try Asian-flavored fantasy? As it turns out there's substantial resources for such a campaign freely available on the Internet.

 

To start with, here's an entire quality HERO web sourcebook for adventuring in the Sengoku era of feudal Japan, with cultural and historical details, maps, NPCs, links to other resources, and an archive of premade adventures (available from the author upon e-mailed request): http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Castle/9529/Gaming_stuff/Sengoku/sengoku_front_page.html

 

And here's another website from a campaign based on that sourcebook, with more historical and cultural info and even more NPCs: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Underworld/1701/sengoku_index.htm

 

This next website takes a more magical/mythic approach to HERO gaming in feudal Japan, with a greater emphasis on magic spells and extraordinary abilities, and additional optional rules to simulate some of the conventions of the setting: http://members.tripod.com/~hawk_wind/hero/rissun.html . It's written for 4E HERO, but easily compatible with 5E.

 

Moving away from Japan, here's a very fine HERO web sourcebook on the "Wuxia" genre of medieval fantasy from China, based on wandering heroes with legendary martial arts abilities: http://www.geocities.com/rpatersonca/WuxiaHeroIndex.html . The site provides lots of info on the genre, including many links; considerable advice and examples for running the genre using HERO; and the outline of a sample campaign setting. It would be easy to tie this in with the Japan material, particularly since the adventures from the first website also cross to China and Korea.

 

Together with the Asian bestiaries, you'd have enough material for years of Oriental fantasy campaigning, if desired. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention Hero Games's fine genre sourcebook for all manner of martial arts gaming, Ninja HERO. It contains tons of advice on how to run historical martial-arts campaigns with HERO, plus a number of interesting NPCs and cool location maps, and even a table of ethnic names. And wouldn't you know, you can currently get Ninja HERO bundled with the Asian Bestiary I and II from the Hero online store for only $37.50!

[bigbywolfe]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

I love the Asian Bestiaries, but I have to ask; why are you set on getting those and not the regular Bestiary?

[CTaylor]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

In all honesty I recommend getting pretty much everything Hero puts out related to the genre you want to run. Get Fantasy Hero, the grimoires, the bestiaries, everything. Even the things not directly related to your campaign can be helpful for ideas and you might find things you hadn't considered.

[Eosin]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

The past two days I've been fooling around with some ideas for a setting and a magic system. My new question is' date=' what do you think is most difficult to create as a GM, skills and talents, a setting, a magic system, or enemies such as NPCs and beasts? I personally think magic, skills, and talents wont be hard. For me the enemies I think will be the worse. So I'm still leaning towards the Asian Bestiaries. Still may go for a setting, because that is kind of a mix of all of the above. Please help. Thank you all.[/quote']

 

I find that enemies take much more of my time. The Rules just require one sit down and some notes - maybe an adjustment in play but when they are done it is just tinkering. The setting is the jewel to me and requires some serious forethought but it is easy to spin a setting out of nothing but a small 100 person village. Enemies, now enemies require some work. Not only on integrating them into the setting but balancing them and pulling them into the pattern of the PCs. I like to have a huge stable of readily available NPCs both enemies, friendlies, and neutrals.

 

Personally, I didn't like the Asian Bestiaries. Knowing your preferences, I'd recommend Nobles, Knights, and Necromancers (FH Enemies) and Monsters, Minions, and Marauders. You might like the ABs but they aren't really going to provide enemies more like monsters ~ i.e. Monster Manual.

 

Thankfully, you can supplement your enemy needs. Susano has quite a few that will work on his website. KillerShrike does as well. I have my own batch of 30-40 Fantasy NPCs. The trick is that none of these work together and none are likely to work for your specific campaign. However, it is much simpler to modify a NPC than to build one from scratch.

 

Pencil Pushers NPCs - this link also has a number of resources that someone could use for a setting. I'd strongly recommend KillerShrikes site for rules considerations.

[LordSolovar]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

$37.50!!!This sale is so amazing. Going to stir up some money. Even if I don't necessarily use the books that often, at that price I cant pass them up.

 

And I DO think I'd use them. With the Ninja Hero, I could do some cool Ninja-Fantasy Fusions. They'll also help me finally convince my older brother to play Hero.

 

Thank you Lord Liaden I'm working my way through the Asian links. They'll most definitely help when i get down to creating an Asian or Asian flavored setting.

 

Some of you have raised the question of why the Asian Bestiaries. Well my friends and I like the idea of using some really unique beasties we never heard of before. I never really thought about the normal Bestiary. Ive now gone and looked at some reviews. I'm completely torn because I'm really attracted to the templates and creature creation stuff it includes. Does the Asian Bestiary include any of that, or just creatures really?

 

I guess I thought I could handle creating NPCs on my own because they are like any other character but not played by a gamer. The mechanics or creation are the same. The monsters seemed more difficult to me. Now that I know the Hero Bestiary has a creature creation chapter I have to look into purchasing it.

 

So Many Choices!!!

 

Shane

[mayapuppies]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

So Many Choices!!!

And this is why we love Hero System

[Lord Liaden]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

Some of you have raised the question of why the Asian Bestiaries. Well my friends and I like the idea of using some really unique beasties we never heard of before. I never really thought about the normal Bestiary. Ive now gone and looked at some reviews. I'm completely torn because I'm really attracted to the templates and creature creation stuff it includes. Does the Asian Bestiary include any of that' date=' or just creatures really?[/quote']

 

Many of the creatures in the Asian Bestiary books include customizing options, often relating to variations in the same basic creature or race from different folkloric sources; but in quite a few cases author Michael Surbrook will refer to creatures or creature templates from the main Bestiary or Monsters, Minions, And Marauders for optional variations. The latter book deals to a far greater extent than the Bestiary with fantasy humanoid races -- giants, elves, mermen, etc. -- and includes Package Deals to add to the basic race character sheet for more skilled fighters, leaders, and the like.

 

With their cross-compatibility, HERO books are like potato chips. It's hard to stop at just one.

[Markdoc]

Re: What books should I buy???

 

To start with, here's an entire quality HERO web sourcebook for adventuring in the Sengoku era of feudal Japan, with cultural and historical details, maps, NPCs, links to other resources, and an archive of premade adventures (available from the author upon e-mailed request): http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Castle/9529/Gaming_stuff/Sengoku/sengoku_front_page.html

 

As an aside - this campaign can be easily converted to a more European setting by swapping Samurai for Knights or Huscarls and Ninja for Assassins and Rogues - in fact the first dozen adventures were written for my own fantasy setting with a vaguely Scandinavian feel and simply converted over to give me a Japanese setting

 

cheers, Mark